


Endings, Beginnings

by dragyn42



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-23
Updated: 2009-02-23
Packaged: 2020-03-01 04:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragyn42/pseuds/dragyn42
Summary: Sometimes, all that’s needed is a little time for the right thing to happen.





	Endings, Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my entry in The Pact challenge. It’s a bit interpretive, not very literal, but I really wanted to try this style of writing. I hope you enjoy.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“Why didn’t we get back together?”

The question was one Harry often thought of, though he wouldn’t admit it to his one-time-girlfriend. He had worked hard to regain Ginny as a friend and he wasn’t going to say anything to mess it up.

“We just weren’t ready, Ginny,” he decided to answer He turned his head to look at her as she lie back on the grass, her arms crossed under her head. “I had lost so much, I was so screwed up. I needed time to sort it all out in my head. I was still constantly afraid that anyone I cared about would suddenly be dead because of something I did. And it didn’t help that I died. I know I came back and all, but the fact of it set in later. It really messed with me.”

“You said ‘we,’” commented Ginny, turning her head to look up at Harry, who was sitting next to her with his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms backwards, propping him upright. She started a bit when she noticed he was looking right at her. His eyes, even now, never failed to send a thrill through her – they were the most stunning thing she had ever seen.

“Hmm?” he raised an eyebrow at her in question, staring directly into her dark, brown eyes.

“You said ‘we,’ but those reasons were you.”

Harry sighed and looked away from her, back towards the sunset that the two of them had become accustomed to watching together. “You were hurting, too. You had just lost your brother. George was a mess. Your mother had killed someone. You all needed time together as a family to work it all out before I got mixed up in the works.”

“You’re family, too, Harry,” Ginny admonished, though it came out a whisper.

“I know. I honestly don’t think I’d have made it through all of that without you guys there, helping me through it. But we both needed time, first.”

Ginny turned away from his darkening silhouette to face what was left of the sunset. She sighed, knowing he was right, and wishing he weren’t.

* * *

“Have you dated anyone since the war, Gin?” asked Harry. He was lying on his back, staring at the sunset.

“A few,” came the response from overhead. Ginny was up in the tree, her one leg stretched up the branch while the other hung over the side, her back up against the trunk and her broom sitting in a crook of branches that looked oddly like they were made for holding a broom.

“What happened?”

“Not much. Most of them were Quidditch groupies. Gwenog told me most of the unattached girls on the team have made their way through them. They’re harmless guys, and, most importantly, they know how to keep their mouths shut.”

“Oh.” Ginny couldn’t figure out if that was disappointment or not. “So, you...?”

“No. Just dates.” She looked down at him, but there were no outward signs that he reacted to her answer. Not disappointment, then. “One or two of them wanted more, but the first one was known for wanting to keep a perfect record of all the single members. And the second, well, he was sweet and all, but it just wasn’t right.”

“So, have you? With anyone?”

“No,” came the quiet, wistful response from above. Together, they watched the sun finish falling behind the horizon, the sky shifting from dark blue to inky black dotted by sparkling points of bright.

* * *

“Harry? Have you dated anyone since the war?”

Harry stared down the length of his own body, lying on the grass, to where Ginny had her head pillowed on his thigh. In the nearly year since they had started watching the sunset together, neither of them had ever repeated a question the other had asked that he could remember. He hoped this didn’t mean she was running out of things to ask; he didn’t think he would ever run out of things to learn about his friend.

“More than I’d like to have.”

“How’s that?”

“There were quite a few Ministry functions back then that ‘requested’ my attendance. I would often go with one girl or another, as to not have date would bring a whole host of other questions. It’s like it’s a sin or something to show up dateless to one of those functions.”

“You didn’t want to go with them?”

“Not really. Some of them were nice, normal girls, happy to get an invite to a Ministry function. But most of them seemed to just want to bag and shag the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “So, you...?”

“Nah. Maybe with one of the less clingy girls, but they were so in awe of me. And the others? I’m tired of being used for my name. The girl I sleep with is going to have want me for, well, me.”

“The girl? You haven’t? Yet?”

“No. Kind of pathetic, hmm? Twenty one years old, the Boy-Who-Lived and never been shagged.”

Ginny didn’t respond, she appeared lost in the striking colors of the setting sun. In the fiery near-dusk glow, Harry noticed, not for the first time, how brilliantly his friend’s hair shone in the red light.

* * *

“Don’t you wish you were no longer a virgin? Even just to know what it’s like?”

Harry tried not to start at the question. Sitting as he was with his back against Ginny’s, hers again his, each supporting the other, while they looked sideways at the setting sun, he didn’t want to show his surprise at the question to her. This was not the first time one of them had asked an extremely personal question of the other, but this did seem, by far, the most personal one yet.

“I wonder a lot, actually, what it’s like. I guess I would like to know. But, I’d want to know with someone who wanted to help me know. Does that make any sense?”

“It does,” answered Ginny.

The sun was low in the sky, but still over the horizon. The red sphere was overlaid with glowing orange and purple clouds – wisps really, adding a visual counterpoint to the solidity of the sun.

“I think I feel the same way. I think that’s why my dates never worked out. No one wanted ‘Ginny,’ they wanted the rookie Chaser or the Harpies player. I need to find someone who wants me.”

“I often wonder if I missed whoever was going to want me for me because of who I am.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Harry.”

“Or maybe it’s because I was so busy staying alive, I never gave her the time to find me.”

“You’ll find her, Harry. The universe wouldn’t put you through all of that and still force you to be alone.”

“You think?”

The sun dipped behind the ground, the red becoming deeper, its colors reflecting off the clouds providing a kaleidescope view.

“You know, if you don’t find anyone, I’d help.”

It was said quietly, as if she didn’t want to interrupt nature at work. He wasn’t even sure he heard it.

“Help?”

“If I don’t find someone and you don’t find someone, maybe we can help each other.”

“You wish you were no longer a virgin.”

“Yes. No. I want to find the person that wants me for me. You, at least, know me.”

“And you know me.”

The revelation in his voice carried silently through the fading light.

* * *

“Have you had any dates, recently?”

“Practice doesn’t allow for meeting guys other then the ones I’ve already decided I’m not going to date.”

Harry looked over at her. She was lying parallel next to him, on her back, the same as him. A small mound in the imperfect flatness of the ground provided a headrest that allowed them to easily see the burning horizon.

“I don’t know how Gwenog does it – handles Quidditch and a husband. But now I know why most of the team are single. Why they rely on the groupies.”

As the sun began its nightly journey, its disappearing act heralding the end of yet another day, she turned onto her side, putting her elbow on the mound and propping her head up with her hand. Her legs curled up, their new shape briefly drawing Harry’s attention before he met her eyes.

“What about you, Mr. Auror? Any dates?”

“No. I was going to ask one of the office workers from the Magical Games Department, but one look from her was all it took to know. It wasn’t me she was interested in, it was the famous Harry Potter.” The irritation in his green eyes was not lost on her.

A slightly chill breeze washed over them, ruffling his short, black mess, causing her red locks to wave briefly, stranded behind her. Both of them were used to the harshest of weather. This was nothing.

Neither of them moved to look back at the sunset.

“My offer stands, Harry.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t break eye contact.

“You know me, Harry.”

“And you know me.”

His whisper touched her, pulled at her, but there was something else he was saying.

“I can’t...” he broke off. Something held him back.

“You won’t lose me, Harry. Ever.”

“You’re my friend.”

“I am. I always will be, no matter what.”

“I can’t loose another one. A friend. A family member. Someone close to me. Someone I...”

Only a sliver of the sun shone above the far distant trees. The red reflected like pinpricks off their eyes. Soon, though, it was gone.

Ginny reached out with her finger and brushed away the single tear that tracked down Harry’s cheek. Her hand stayed there, cupping his cheek.

“Are we ready, now?”

She received her answer when Harry moved in. His face inched closer. His eyes stayed on hers all the way until their lips met.

It was soft, hesitant. There were no hands, no intensity. It was nice.

Another breeze blew over them. Harry changed the way he was laying and pulled her in towards him, onto him.

* * *

Harry came awake slowly. The first thing he noticed was the body in his arms. He opened his eyes to see that it was dark. Underneath the cloaks they were using as blankets, he could feel hot breath pulsing against his chest.

The previous night came back to him. His friend – he had slept with Ginny, possibly forever losing her. Reflexively, his arms tightened around her, preventing her from going away. It was enough. The breathing changed.

She was awake, but she didn’t say anything. Then there were kisses. She was kissing his chest, stroking her hand against his naked side. He relaxed.

The sky started to shift. Away went the black, becoming a deep, dark blue. Off to his side, he saw red appearing over the horizon, a point of bright, clean light coming into existence.

Ginny’s head began kissing up his chest, her head appearing out of the top of the cloak covering them. She met his eyes, her hands coming to rest behind his neck, and kissed him soundly.

Eventually, she rolled in his embrace. He didn’t think he would ever get enough of feeling her, all of her, against him, under his hands. Her smooth, soft skin sang against his own. He didn’t think he could survive if he lost this now.

“I don’t want to watch the sunsets with you anymore, Harry.”

His heart dropped. This couldn’t happen.

“I can’t keep spending time with you at the end.” She paused. Harry barely noticed the glowing sphere that now showed half over the horizon, opposite from last nights view. “I want to be with you at the beginnings, to see every sunrise.”

He pulled her toned, lithe body tightly against his own. The warmth of their contact filled him, radiating out from their united skin. For the first time in several years, ever since the end of the war, his heart felt free. This was what he wanted, he simply couldn’t see it then.

“I’d like that,” he whispered in her ear. “Every sunrise. Together.”

He kissed the back of her neck, behind her ear, the top of her head as the sun rose, its light bringing new life, new beginning to the day.


End file.
